Outside the tent the sky was gray and spitting rain -- temp probably in the 40s. Neither warm nor dry.
I dragged my self-supporting one-man tent and fly to the porch of the shower room. Nobody else was up, no one to complain.
Finally, camp broken and bike loaded, I'm away... focused mostly on the state of my rear tire. Jessica has phone number for my towing company, if needed. I can send a satellite help request and she can act on that, if it comes to that.
Two close calls with bears later, I figure I should focus on the road.
After a gas and fuel stop at Bell 2 Lodge. -- I was just thinking this looked like heli-skiing territory, and there sits the chopper at Bell 2.
The road dries, more or less, and after another 20 or so miles, actually comes to resemble keep a highway -' even has a center stripe.
At the turnoff to Stewaet/Hyder, I hang a right. Going to see Bear Glacier. After, I continue into Stewart then clear customs and am in Hyder, Alaska, billed as an inhabited ghost town. Apt. I'd say. The road ends there. Literally. This is a tiny US outpost with no road in or out except through Canada, much like Pt. Roberts, WA.
Back in Stewart, I grab a burger at Dash Burger, a food truck parked in the center of a deck. The whole thing is covered and enclosed by plastic wind-wall. Outstanding burger but best is the beverage. .. ginger tea with lots of locally-grown mint. Cool, popular place -- as popular as it can be in a town with maybe 500 people.
Stewart and Hyder sit on the Portland Inlet, a narrow body of ever that slices through the coast range to the Gulf of Alaska. I've accidentally found myself in a coastal fishing and logging town.
Back to the Cassiar, southward again, the country almost immediately feels less wilderness-ish. It's not, really, but the nature if the mountains has changed.
I end the day at Smithers,, on the Yellowhead Highway, where I hope to secure a tire tomorrow.
Then east
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